Kasich’s staff unlikely to share in sacrifice

Here’s another fun fact about Kasich’s budget: the cuts in Governor’s office spending are not only much, much lower than in any other are of the budget, but they are most likely not coming out of his staff’s salaries. As a matter of fact, spending on salaries has actually GONE UP since Kasich took office.

We looked at a weekly comparison of salaries associated with the Governor’s office for the second part of February 2011 and compared them to the salaries from the same period in 2010 under Strickland and found that they went up nearly 10% from $83,547 to $91,980. Oh! And that doesn’t even include Special Assistant Jai Chambria, whose $5,726 bi-weekly salary is paid by the Department of Commerce.

To be fair, Strickland also had people working in his office with salaries paid by agencies. But Kasich claimed his staff costs would actually be dropping despite the fact that he gave all of his closest friends huge salary increases when he hired them. And this is absolutely not turning out to be the case.

John’s budget and the union-busting SB5 legislation he is pushing through the legislature have both been sold as necessary measures requiring shared sacrifice to make the state stronger. Not surprisingly, the sacrifice seems only to be required for people who don’t work in John Kasich’s office.

Also, it looks like the Ohio House and Senate get their Budgets bumped up this year (2011) and then stay the same for 2012 and 2013. Where is their “shared sacrifice”?

irishgal

Has anyone seen this information on Kathie Bracy’s blog – I’m an educator and I have found that the information she provides has been 100% accurate in the past – I haven’t done the math myself but this is really interesting information:

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011
Teachers and legislators: Molly Ganz does the math and exposes the politicians
From Molly Ganz, March 14, 2011

Politicians picked this fight with teachers and other public workers – the hypocrites! It’s never been about the budget.

An Ohio Legislator earns 1.35 years of service credit per year (and for only about 60 days of work). This means that legislators earn a 30 year pension, at any age, after just 22.22 years of service. This is outrageous!
Ohio legislators receive FULL retirement pension for only 1,380 days in 22.22 years

But teachers’ retirement pension is earned after the minimum 5,550 days in 30 years.
But legislators are saying that collective bargaining has killed the budget. Pants on fire!
Cumulative credit table:

I can’t add the table but it’s located at: http://kathiebracy.blogspot.com/ YOU HAVE TO SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE TABLE
…………………………………………………………………….
POSTED BY KATHIE BRACY AT 10:31 PM

irishgal

I just realized that the table is included at the end of the message! Very interesting! I’m sure we’ll be seeing this in the Dispatch…NOT.

David from Hilliard

I would put in one caveat re use of this table publicly: I believe the 60 days stipulated for legislators is based on days they are actually in legislative session. They – most of them – work more days outside of session than in. I’ve been in to see a number of legislators over the years and most times it was on days when they were in their offices – but the legislature itself was not in session.

If you say they work only 60 days, based on the mandated number of days in session – they’ll gleefully come back at you with days in their Columbus offices, days at the offices in their home districts, meetings, conferences, etc., to show you that they are really hard-working public servants who, if anything, are underpaid.

Plus they’ll likely point out that they have to face their constituents at least once every two years, something a teacher doesn’t have to do.

Just a cautionary note.

guest

Because the only thing they like to share is better flushed down the toilet. Yes people, we get less government and evil rich people get more. Government by and for the have mores only brought to us by the evil radical Rethug party.

Isn’t this so much better? No, then vote and don’t vote for R’s.

Kcn49

Unless I missed it, the comparison does not actually include Gov. Strickland in his budget, only Lt. Gov. Fisher. The Lt. Gov. is not included in Kasich’s budget so the actual impact on the numbers may be small, but attention to detail is quite important. Unless Strickland made the same or less than Fisher, or Kasich’s Lt. Gov. makes more than Kasich, the percent increase will be less than stated in the article above.

Kcn49

Unless I missed it, the comparison does not actually include Gov. Strickland in his budget, only Lt. Gov. Fisher. The Lt. Gov. is not included in Kasich’s budget so the actual impact on the numbers may be small, but attention to detail is quite important. Unless Strickland made the same or less than Fisher, or Kasich’s Lt. Gov. makes more than Kasich, the percent increase will be less than stated in the article above.

David from Hilliard

I said THEY (the legislators) would say they’re underpaid – not me.

Joankirkncosmo

I am with you! I think all first responders, police, fire & ems are not paid or thanked enough for doing a job most will not do! I commend those who put their lives in danger every day for the people of their cities and our country! Politicians do nothing but blow smoke up your know where! We need kasich out of office NOW!

Adrienne

Yes, there will be shared sacrifice. Ask Ebenezer Kasich about underpaying the support staff to cut back on spending. Why not ask your overpaid toadies to do so? Because we need their sooooo superior talent (plucked from the private sector, NOT) to help the big business welfare queens to steal more money from us than they already do.

CDR Jan

Well, of course the sacrifice will be borne only by people who don’t work for King John. Did you expect anything different?

King John Kasick is proving himself to be a total ass when it comes to governing a large industrial state, which shouldn’t be a surprise, considering that I had more executive experience when I was an ensign in the US Navy than he will ever have.

http://plunderbund.com Joseph

I actually looked at multiple months of the Strickland office salary expenses and they were all lower. I decided to go with a year-over-year comparison because it seemed more appropriate than the last few months when people may have left his office or left to work on campaigns and the difference was even greater.

The numbers were intended to show that the total salary paid to Governor’s office employees from funds specifically allocated to the Governor’s office is slightly higher under Kasich.

You could make a point that Strickland did a better job hiding his people at agencies (which I clearly mention in the post) but the conclusion is still the same: Kasich is calling for shared sacrifice – he’s cutting agency budgets by millions of dollars and asking all government employees to suck it up and take less pay and lower benefits – but his own office isn’t impacted at all.

Good leaders lead by example.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Healy/824603010 Michael Healy

Well isnt this what big business does??Gets rid of the little guy,close the factory,REWARD management.Hummmm wonder where John learned his tricks?? Oh and I forgot.Then BLAME everyone else.